Preparation, Properties and Characterization of Modified CeO_2/La_2Zr_2O_7 Buffer Layers

The metal organic deposition (MOD) method was used for the epitaxial growth of the CeO2/La2Zr2O7(LZO)/LZO seed layer structure on a cube-textured Ni5W substrate layer by layer. The material phase and the macro-orientations were analyzed by XRD. The surface morphology and the blocking performance of the buffer layer were investigated by SEM and AES. The grain orientation and the crystallographic growth mode of the CeO2 layer were first characterized by electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD). The uniformly distributed islanded LZO seed layer optimized both the in-plan and the out-plan orientation of the CeO2/LZO buffer layers, and the CeO2/LZO buffer layers with a thickness of 175 nm acted as an efficient Ni,W barrier. The EBSD analysis indicated that the crystallographic orientation of each layer can be obtained at various accelerating voltages for the multilayer sample, the percentage of {001}<110> rotated cube texture of CeO2 layer reaching 97.4% at the accelerating voltage of 15 kV, thus showing epitaxial deposition with a high texture.